________________
APRIL, 1899.]
ON THE GUREZI DIALECT OF SHINA.
SS
godanyuk tą bod hukm chhu yuhay, this indeed is the first and great commandment; 44* cons 33. dia yaitwy los kus chhu sárenay-hundi khota boda, who is a greater than all; i, e., the greatest ? do wy ruthyuh, the best (Luke, xv. 22).
225. The idea 'much' with a comparative is expressed by a riyada; e.., likuta ziyâdą rut, much better than; how much?' is expressed by wys kút; e. g., jie y's kát bihtar, how much better?
226. If an adjective in a case other than the reminative is put in the comparative degree
unani kochi dairah e taji بنه گچ به دوره زه بجه بجه گرت ,this is done by repeating it ;e.g
baji karak, I will pull down my barns and build greater ? This doubling is also used for strengthening the positive ; e. 9., U
(To be continued.)
Sladi Ladi nishán,
ON THE GUREZI DIALECT OF SHINA.
BY J. WILSON, I. C. S.
Preface by G. A. Grierson. I Trust that the following account of a very little-known language, which has come into my possession during the progress of the Linguistic Survey of India, will be of interest to the readers of the Indian Antiquary.
Owing to the great variety of shades of vowel sounds which we meet with in dialects in and near the Hindu Kush, it has been found necessary to depart somewhat from the system of transcription used in this publication for representing the Devanagari alphabet in the Roman character. This has been found unavoidable, but it is hoped that Mr. Wilson's remarks on pronunciation will prevent any difficulty being experienced,
The valley known in English as Gurais and in Persian as Gurõz, is called by its inhabitants Gorāi. It is about five miles long by half a mile broad, and contains some six villages with a total population of perhaps 1,500 or 2,000 souls. The people call themselves Dārds, the principal inhabitants being Lun by tribe. Their language is a dialect of Shinā, and is said to be most closely connected with those spoken in Chilās, Kanē, and Dras. Although Gorāi is within thirty miles of the Kashmir Valley, with which it communicates by the Răzdiangan Pass, 11,800 feet above the sea, the dialect is quite different from Kāśmiri, - so different that an inhabitant of Gorāj and a Kasmiri, each speaking only his own mother tongue, would be quite unintelligible to each other. It is very much simpler than Kasmiri, baving far lewer infections, and is even simpler than Panjabi or Urdu, which it resembles in structure and syntax, though the vocabulary and inflections are almost entirely different.
The dialect frequently employs the sound of the sibilant in the word 'plensure,' i. e., the French , which is transcribed zh in the system of transliteration adopted for this article. We also meet the half-pronounced " and i at the end of a word which are so common in Kashmiri, and which are also
So spelt by Drew. Mr. Wilson spells the word Dård. ? This tribe is not mentioned by Drew. I am indebted to Mr. Wilson for the information,
• The relationship between Shina and Kibiri is a question which has not yet been dofinitely settled. Suffice it to say that there is a stock of vocables which are common to the two languages, and which are not met in any Indian languages, or in any of the other so-called Dard languages. On the other hand, the grammatical structures of the two languages are widely different.
